The Belly...

I don’t make New Years resolutions but this time I think I am gonna have to. In the last six months I have gone from 131 lbs to 156 lbs. I have myself and my job to thank for that. I have not worked out at all either. My 32 inch jeans are now too small and I have to wear them with the button undone to be comfortable. Now, everyone has told me that I look fine and that I am still very skinny. They are right to a certain extent. But these folks do not see me naked. It really isn’t the way I look that bothers me rather than the way I feel. My weight gain is in my tummy and since it is winter I am wearing larger clothes that disguise the shed I am building. Honestly, I am not all that concerned about the weight gain. I am more concerned with how I gained it all. When I stared my new job at FCS I thought WOW I don’t have to pay for food any more. Working for a company that caters in lunch everyday and has an open kitchen has been a money saving blessing! However, my one Diet Coke per day habit has now increased to three and my cereal intake has increased dramatically. Then there are the lunches. The menu is rotated regularly and they try and bring on new restaurants all the time. Here is the breakdown:

Monday: Usually BBQ or fish (Rockfish, Colters, Mama’s, etc)
Tuesday: Sandwiches and salads. (Which Wich, Potbelly, Atlanta Bread Co., Snappy Salads—YUMMY)-this is probably the most healthy of the week
Wednesday: Usually pastas and Italian or Chinese
Thursday: Mexican
Friday: Junk food (Sonic, Arbys, Pizza, etc)

During incredibly busy times such as a quarter end that requires us to be here during the late evening, and sometimes during the early night, dinner will be catered in. So you can see how convenient and cost effective this is. If there are leftovers then we can take some home. I rarely cook anymore and never during the week. Starting now, why wait till the New Year, I am chilling out on my food intake. Last night they catered in Chick-Fil-A, well…..I inhaled about 15 nuggets and a chicken sandwich. I felt miserable. I am fighting the urge/need to go buy a new pair of larger jeans. If I do that then that means they win. After I got home last night I crawled into bed and did some stuff online and was thinking to myself this hour that I am sitting here surfing the web I could be downstairs in our gym. I just closed the laptop, turned off the light, and went to bed.

Today, I have been working on the same diet coke since 8am (it is now 10:23). Lunch will be served soon and it is Pizza. Ugh. I left my wallet at home today otherwise I would have gone and picked something up that is much healthier. I don’t know, as I get older I fully expect to gain more weight as my metabolism slows down but it seems I am ahead of schedule. My goal is not to go by new pants.

Well my birthday is almost over and I have had a very relaxing and great day.  Chad parked the car in the garage and we took the train to Victory.  He, and I, was starving so we headed over to Luna de Noche for dinner.  The service was odd and the lights kept dimming up and down.  But the food, the margaritas and the company were first class.  So then we head over to the hockey game.  We have a drink at the Jack Daniels club then we attempted to find our seats.  We never did so we just sat down and had great seats right behind the goal. I really should learn how to post pictures on here just to show the great seats we had.  Thank you Merkin girl for the tickets and the passes to the club!!!  LOVE you!! So overall I had a great day.  It is still cold out and I could use a little snuggling with Ron.  However I am sure he needs it more since it is freezing cold in KC!  

Ninjas...

I have had a few folks ask me what the meaning is behind the phrase "I believe in Ninjas."  Well, first of all I love the phrase, love saying it.  It just sounds random and cool.  But then I really started thing about it.  It is random and off the wall.  I sometimes tend to be that way I guess Ninjas are serious people-I mean you would have to be serious to be a killing machine.  I can be very serious and I have watched enough ALIAS to be a self proclaimed killing machine! HA!  Overall, it is just a saying and I love it!  So there you have it.

Good Morning...

Ahhh, the morning of my 32nd birthday as arrived.  I slept in till around 930.  I got up, took a shower and made myself some scrambled eggs with pancheta and parmesan cheese.  Then I started reading my new cookbook from Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa Parties! (one of my gifts from Ron).  I love throwing parties and wish I had had this book much sooner!  Some people read novels, I read cookbooks-cover to cover!  I would totally start cooking something now but I have the oven on self-clean.  There was a Vodka Chicken Pasta incident last night before doing airport duty.  As I was removing the coveted VCP from the oven I dropped it.  Just slipped right out of my hands and went all over the oven. (VCP is basically one of the finest dishes EVER and Campisis in downtown Dallas is makes the best).  I had to wait a few hours for it to cool completely down before removing the food.  So poor Ron went to the airport hungry and I had mushy VCP to clean up.   

In Philly...

On my way home this evening I could not help but overhear a conversation two men were having about the difference between Dallas and Philadelphia.  Both men where obviously from Philly from the context of their conversation.  They like Dallas and stated it was less ghetto.  I must agree.  I have been to Philadelphia many times and have enjoyed each trip but yea, it can get a little ghetto.  What really caught my ear was that one man stated that everything is so much more expensive in Philly compared to Dallas.  I would have to agree with that.  But did you know that a loaf of bread will cost you 2.50 and that a vile of crack will run you 2 dollars?  3 viles will be 5 dollars.  What a bargain.  

The New Mac...

This past weekend I purchased a brand new laptop to replace my aging Dell. My curiosity turned me to Apple. A few people I know have them and love them. So I took the plunge and so far I am glad I did! I was a little nervous about switching from a PC to a Mac. I am not at all familiar with the operating system on Mac but Windows has been driving me crazy. When I pulled my new MacBook out of the box and turned it on it asked me about 4 questions and then it was setup. Everything worked instantly. I was like wow, fast. Then I needed to download my stuff from the PC to the Mac. My intent was to wirelessly network both machines but the wireless on the dell had stopped reading my modem for some reason. I was also confused about how to use the cable to transfer, Ron and I both had issues with that. Then I had to go and get the cable wet and ruined it. So I used Ron’s external hard drive. Transferring the files from the PC to that drive took about 45 minutes. Transferring the files from the hard drive to the Mac took 10 minutes. All I had to do was drag and drop the files and it all set itself up. To date, I am impressed with my purchase. I even had a video chat with a friend back in London and was crystal clear. The MacBook has a built-in camera that works great. Everyone told me that using a Mac would be much easier and more efficient-which I am all about. Just the look of the machine is great. Very sleek, simple, and stylish. Despite the price tag the purchase was well worth it!

Football...

I have a boyfriend that is really into football. This is a first for me. It certainly doesn’t bother me at all. During my single days I would turn on the Cowboys and do my chores around the house. Not really watching but I liked the back ground noise and would stop and watch a few minutes. Since football season has started I have now become more football savvy. Ron will switch back and forth between different games but all I really care about are the Dallas Cowboys! Have you seen the dark blue uniforms—simply fabulous! Anyway, I have noticed a trend in quarterbacks-they are hot! Tony Romo, Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Payton Manning—all major hotness! Although T.O. is not a QB, he is still a very pretty black man-great skin and teeth! Go Cowboys!!

One Sick Puppy...

Why do dogs like to eat cat shit? I don’t get it? I thought I had found a dog with a better palette but I was wrong. The shitty litter box is in the utility room and I have to keep the door slightly ajar so that Ms. Kitty can get in. In the months that I have had Moses he has never gotten into her box. Well, now he has. The other night I noticed that his breath was awful. I mean down right repulsive. I gave him a greenie and wish now that I hadn’t. He ate it and we went to bed. His breath was still explosive. I moved him to the other side of the bed. In the middle of the night I hear him throwing up on the bed. What came out was brown. I immediately cleaned it up with OxyClean™. Then I put him in the tub at 4am. His breath still nasty. I was like “what in the hell did you get into?” It never occurred to me that he was having cat dung hor’s de vours. I was able to get more sleep and when I was about to walk out the door he urinated all over himself on the sofa. So I gave him another bath and then cleaned the sofa. When I got home I found litter pellets on the rug. I followed the trail and found a few cat turds. BINGO! I then brushed his teeth. He didn’t like this but I couldn’t take it anymore. He did this again and I caught him. I try and clean the box everyday but the little shit (no pun intended) keeps beating me to it. I rigged the little box to where he has no access.

The Gigerbread House...

Before I became deathly ill on Saturday I picked up a gingerbread house kit from Target™. I thought “how fun!!” I have always been intrigued by these houses. The depth and difficulty and time it takes to master this craft is amazing. I have always wanted to give it a try. Target makes it easy! For 9.99 you can pick up your very own kit. The kit comes complete with everything you need to assemble and decorate your house. Even the ginger bread is cooked and ready to go. I get home and immediately start to work. There are some adjustments I would have made to the directions but I decided to follow them. Ron and I assembled the walls and then added the roof pieces. We held the roof in place for 1 minute and waited 10 minutes after that to start decorating. Well the roof began to separate so I added more icing. So far so good. Then the decorating began. This where I should have altered the directions. Adding the décor should have been done before setting up the walls. The windows look like they melted and the candy added just seemed to droop. Again the roof began to slide. I wished I had some glue at this point but that would have been cheating. The icing, which came in its own bag turned out to be messy. Ron was icing a portion of the house and I guess was squeezing too hard with his muscular arms and the end of the bag exploded and icing went all over him. The kitchen was an absolute wreck. Over all it turned out just ok. And from a distance you can’t tell that there is anything wrong with it. It is like a Monet painting. It looks great from afar but up close it looks like crap.

I Was Poisoned...

Saturday Ron and I decided to grab lunch at Jake’s on McKinney Ave. in Uptown. We have been there many times before. He ordered “The Works” which amounts to a heart attack on a poppy seed bun. I ordered “The Mushroom Swiss Burger” which amounts to very high cholesterol on a poppy seed bun. We like Jake’s. The burgers are great and the tea comes to the table already sweet by a pretty girl with low rise jeans (which shows off her tramp stamp*), and a low cut Jake’s t-shirt with overflowing boobs. As gay men we don’t go there for the scenery. So Saturday I was eating my burger thinking to myself “wow, this is one tasty burger!” About 3 hours later I started not to feel so hot. I felt like there was someone pressing really hard on my chest and eventually every time I swallowed I felt the need to vomit. I laid down around 3:30 or so, the pressure on my chest rising. I was fully dressed in sweats and socks and shirt and under the comforter. I was shaking and the need to hurl was almost too much to bear. I asked Ron to fetch me some 7Up™. This did the trick. I vomited for what seemed like forever. While the hamburger had digested the mushrooms decided to hang out and stay a while. Then the mushrooms decided to come back to say hello in full constitution. I returned back to bed, shaking still. This process continued for a while. Then I started sweating. Sweating like a whore in church. Then stuff started coming out the other end and that is all I am going to say about that. Anyway, by 11pm I started feeling a little better but probably because I was exhausted. I slept through the night and woke up Sunday and was so sore I could barely move. Ron, the sweet kind gentleman he is, lovingly bathed my back in Icy Hot™. So the rest of the day I smelled like a walking medicine cabinet and chilled on the sofa lying on a heating pad watching 5+ hours of Law & Order. My stomach is much better today. I am not saying to not eat at Jake’s because the food is really good. Next time I shall bypass the mushrooms. And I have determined that Jesse L. Martin is a one handsome black man.

*Tramp Stamp is a tattoo on the small of one’s back that is noticeable by wearing low rise jeans

Toto...

I swear that I am going to put a sign on my dog that states “I am NOT Toto, Bitches!” If I have one more person come up to me and ask if Moses is Toto I will probably commit a homicide. Moses is a Yorkshire Terrier. Toto is a Cairn Terrier. Now, there is some discussion as to the type of terrier breed that Toto was. Frank L. Baum never specified the breed in his Oz books. He explained that Toto was “a little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes…” This description could be any type of small dog. In the illustrations in the novel, Toto is believed to be a Cairn Terrier which are very similar to a Yorkie and a Cairn was used in the movie. Ugh.